The following blog entry is by Sarah at the Healthy Home Economist.
The vaccine industry went home with its tail between its legs after suffering an enormous and embarrassing defeat at the hands of the Vermont legislature last week.
The well monied effort by Big Pharma went down in flames with the defeat of S 199 which would have eliminated the right of Vermont parents to refuse vaccinations based on philosophical reasons.
S 199 was introduced by State Senator Mullin who just happens to be the Vermont chairperson for the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). ALEC is a lobbying organization that works for the benefit of Big Business that provides it with its generous funding.
A complaint was recently filed against ALEC by Common Cause charging that the lobbying organization is evading Federal tax law by posing as a tax exempt charity all the while spending millions of dollars each year lobbying for hundreds of bills in state legislatures all across the United States.
In keeping with the ALEC modus operandi when pushing pet legislation, S 199 passed with dizzying speed in the Vermont Senate, but by the time it got to the Vermont House, parents had organized and started to fight back hard.
Of grave concern was the aggressive lobbying by Dr. Harry Chen MD, the Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Health Services, who had the audacity to suggest that the very reason the philosophical exemption should be eliminated was because of increasing numbers of parents exercising their philosophical right to vaccine refusal!
How’s that for warped logic?
Fortunately, freedom and common sense prevailed and by the time S 199 emerged from the Vermont House, the philosophical exemption remained intact. Parents will have to now submit letters of philosophical refusal each year and sign a statement that they realize that not vaccinating puts others at risk. Such measures are nothing but face saving compromise to allow the Vaccine Industry to slink away quietly, whimpering in defeat considering that the herd immunity argument by the vaccine industry is blatantly false.
Will the Vermont legislature have another go at eliminating the philosophical exemption next legislative session? Not likely, say S 199 activists, who promise heated efforts to unseat the bill’s sponsors so that they are not returned to office after the Fall elections.
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist